The Top 5 Quotes from Eric Morris’ First News Conference of Spring Ball

STILLWATER — The first spring of the Eric Morris Era is here.

Oklahoma State opened its spring practice schedule on Monday. Afterward, Morris met with reporters to discuss how it went. Here are five things he hit on, and you can watch his news conference in full below.

The Defense Got the Better of the Offense

Morris is an offensive guy. He said he’s had to learn that it’s alright if the defense beats the offense in practice some days.

Monday, the first day of spring practice, was one of those days.

“I thought the defense really got after the offense for most of the day,” Morris said. “Maybe it was a little bit of the elements. We were outside the whole entire day. It was beautiful out there, pretty windy. We had some 18-22 mph wind at our backs, and so I didn’t think we adjusted very well to that. We threw a bunch of balls over the receivers’ heads today.”

Being a part of the Mike Leach tree didn’t help Morris expand on his views of defenses having their days in practice, but he learned about it in his short stint at Washington State.

“It was really good for me to go to Washington State and work for a defensive head coach like Jake Dickert,” Morris said. “And sometimes practice was scripted for the defense, really, to have success. And it was amazing for me to see on the flip side of the way I grew up under Leach and Kingsbury and Sumlin, all the offensive guys when it was predicated that way, the defense, they got a lot of confidence in what they were doing. 

“This is like the ultimate team sport, and so we’re going to need everybody to win football games. Defense, they say, wins championships. I mean, I’m not angry. It took me a while to learn not to go home at night and be so frustrated as a play caller. I just know we have some things to fix on that side of the ball.”

How Does Mestemaker Get Even Better?

Spring is a time for young guys to continue to develop, and though Drew Mestemaker led the country in passing last year, he’s still entering only his redshirt sophomore season.

How does Mestemaker get better in his first spring in Stillwater?

“Just a growth mindset,” Morris said. “Here’s a kid that, when you look at it, he didn’t play football at all in high school at the position he’s playing right now. So if you look at his body of work, we are at 13 or 14 games that he started. And although you had so much success last year, I think he’s still in such a growth phase of his life. And then obviously, the speed of the game is going to be a little bit faster playing P4 football, and being able to adjust to the speed of the game and realize how much faster he has to get some balls out, anticipate a little bit more, how much tighter some of the man coverage stuff is going to be. I think this is going to be a big spring for him to grow a ton after playing only 14 games.”

Oates’ Future ‘Still Up in the Air’

The Cowboys are still waiting word on whether defensive tackle Iman Oates will be eligible for the 2026 season.

It would be Oates’ sixth year of college ball, but his first two were spent at junior college NEO. With NIL’s implementation, a lot of guys have gotten JUCO years voided off their eligibility clocks.

He’s played in all 24 of the Cowboys’ games the past two seasons and has made 39 tackles, five tackles for loss and two sacks.

“Still up in the air,” Morris said. “So all these things with the NCAA, I mean, everything changes, judges, injunctions. I mean, then the NCAA comes back, sues people. Your guess is as good — You’ll probably know if he’s eligible before I will because it’s going to come out on social media. But we should know in the next couple of weeks, is what they’re telling us, the judge is telling us right now. I don’t know how to take some of these NCAA lawsuits right now.”

New Facilities Have ‘Almost Too Much Space’

Back when Morris was the head coach at Incarnate Word, he had one field to practice (and play) on.

The Sherman E. Smith Training Center across from Boone Pickens Stadium hosts four fields: one indoor, an outdoor turf field and two natural grass fields.

“There is almost too much space, I would say,” Morris said. “I go back to my days of Incarnate Word, and we had one field, one practice field, one game field, one any field on the whole entire campus. And so we had to share that with soccer and track and field at the same time. So the organization of trying to figure out how to practice and get everything done on that small amount of space. And then at North Texas we had a great practice space with two fields with an indoor and a practice field right next to it, which was just like, I didn’t know what to do when I saw that. It was all ours.

“And then you get here. So every stop along the way, I double up on space. I really like the grass fields to really protect our players’ knees and ankles during the course of spring, and so a ton of time on that grass. But it was nice to be able to utilize all this, all this space for the first practice.”

Return of the TE?

With all the new happening, Morris hasn’t fielded a ton of questions on individual players.

But one guy OSU fans are excited about is LSU tight end transfer Donovan Green. The tight end position has been, let’s say, underutilized in recent seasons in Stillwater, and Green has a ton of talent, evident by that fact that he was a four-star recruit coming out of high school.

Green had an excellent true freshman season at Texas A&M, catching 22 passes for 233 yards and two touchdowns, but he was injured ahead of the 2023 season and hasn’t exactly had regular snaps since.

“Donovan has done a great job,” Morris said. “I call him an old head just because he’s been around so many programs. I think he’s a guy that he’s been scarred in the past because he was such a good young player at Texas A&M had a big role as a young buck gets hurt, gets injured, goes through some major surgeries and just working his way back up to be a guy that’s counted on each and every day.

“He’s married. He’s living here with his wife. He’s going through a lot of different scenarios and situations that the rest of our players aren’t right now. So he’s a guy that just handles his business. The maturity comes out each and every day. I like the progression he’s on right now.”